Apple allays China iPhone-tracking fears, denies 'backdoor' to location data

Apple has moved to allay fears in China that the iPhone is tracking citizens by gathering location data.

Chinese state-run TV channel China Central Television (CCTV) said last week that the tool was a security risk to the population, especially as tensions between the US and China are running high on cyber issues.

In response, Apple has released a long statement aiming to assuage these concerns, claiming that the feature is only used for the benefit of customers, not by Apple or any other entity such as the National Security Agency (NSA).

“As we have stated before, Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will. It’s something we feel very strongly about,” it said.

“Apple does not track users’ locations – Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.”

Apple said location data gathered by the phone is done so for the users' benefit and in a manner that means Apple does not receive this information.

“Our customers want and expect their mobile devices to be able to quickly and reliably determine their current locations for specific activities such as shopping, travel, finding the nearest restaurant or calculating the amount of time it takes them to get to work,” it said in the statement.

“In order to accomplish this goal, Apple maintains a secure crowd-sourced database containing known locations of cell towers and WLAN hotspots that Apple collects from millions of Apple devices.

"It’s important to point out that during this collection process, an Apple device does not transmit any data that is uniquely associated with the device or the customer.”

Apple also noted that customers have control over this process, and can turn off the function in their phone’s Settings menu.

"Customers have to make the choice to enable Location Services, it is not a default setting. Apple does not allow any app to receive device location information without first receiving the user’s explicit consent through a simple pop-up alert. This alert is mandatory and cannot be overridden," it said.

"Customers may change their mind and opt out of Location Services for individual apps or services at any time by using simple 'On/Off' switches. When a user turns 'Off' location data for an app or service, it stops collecting the data."

Finally, with regards the frequent locations tool within the iPhone, Apple said this data was never gathered directly by Apple and remained solely for the user’s benefit.

“Frequent Locations are only stored on a customer’s iOS device, they are not backed up on iTunes or iCloud, and are encrypted. Apple does not obtain or know a user’s Frequent Locations and this feature can always be turned 'Off' via our privacy settings.”

“Apple does not have access to Frequent Locations or the location cache on any user’s iPhone at any time. We encrypt the cache by the user’s passcode and it is protected from access by any app."

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• Topics
• Mobile Phones
• Security
• Government
• Apple
• iPhone
• China